"collude" = "create cutting-edge work with an avant-garde artist"

[Laurence Horn]

And for those wanting to know more, there's always wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Mead%27s_Ass

But I kind of like the way Martin puts it, whether or not "ass" really is off-limits for the Gray Lady in the fundamental rather than donkey-referential sense.  After all, once "derrière" had been referenced earlier in the piece, "though the Anglo-Saxon term was used instead of the French" is nicely allusive compared with e.g. "the English word 'ass' was used in place of 'derrière'"; it rewards the reader for doing a little extra inferencing, which never hurts anyone.

LH

On May 11, 2013, at 2:28 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> The opening sentence of the NYTimes's obituary of
> "Taylor Mead, Bohemian And Actor", by Douglas
> Martin, as printed on May 10, 2013 (B17, NY edition; B15, N.E. edition).
>
> "Taylor Mead, a poet, actor and exuberant
> bohemian who colluded with Andy Warhol in the
> 1960s to nurture a new approach to making movies
> — sometimes spontaneously, always inexpensively
> (hand-held 16-millimeter cameras sufficed) and
> brashly experimental (one film consisted of an
> hourlong shot of Mr. Mead’s bare posterior) — died on Wednesday in Colorado."
>
> In the rest of the article, I didn't observe
> anything illegal or unethicial ... unless one
> wants to count two films exhibiting Mr. Taylor's
> bare derrière.  (See below for more about the rear unguarded.)
>
> The OED2 does complete its sense 1 for "collude"
> with "to act in play merely" [no, not barely],
> but I can't associate "collude" with mere playacting.
>
> Changed to "collaborated" on-line.
>
> Concerning the rear -- The obituary includes the following two paragraphs:
>
> "Mr. Mead played Tarzan, edited the film and
> handled the sound. On screen, his sarong kept
> falling off while climbing trees, prompting a
> critic to say that he really did not want to see
> any more two-hour films of Mr. Mead’s derrière.
>
> "Warhol wrote a letter to The Village Voice
> saying that after searching “the vast Warhol
> archives,” he could find no two-hour film of Mr.
> Mead’s behind. “We are rectifying [sic] this
> undersight [sic],” he said, and soon made what
> would become a little-seen cult classic, the
> title describing in three words precisely what
> the critic did not want to see (though the
> coarser Anglo-Saxon term was used instead of the French)."
>
> Is Mr. Morgan being coy, or does the NYTimes ban "ass"?
>
> Joel
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org